We live in times of austerity and cutbacks, and yet the need to promote investment and jobs was never more important. How does a small country balance the need for prudent budgets while stimulating the economy at the same time?
The answer, of course, is a cutback that everyone can manage without too much pain and that doesn’t impede the ability of the economy to grow.
I haven’t been idling while the economy burns. I have come up with my own one-point plan that foresees a 50% cut in one important aspect of Irish life that should deliver all kinds of benefits.
Where do we have excess? Where are we spending more than we really need? It should be obvious to all – especially viewers of Sky Sports.
I refer, of course, to the use of a word twice when one usage would be ample to express the full meaning. How many times have we heard the breathless Sky Sports announcer tell us that the upcoming game between, say, Doncaster and Bristol City, is a ‘massive, massive game’.
I know it will be a restriction – an imposition that football people will say targets them directly and limits the full enjoyment to be derived from ‘massive, massive’ games. Yet, once the fans realise that one word is the maximum allowed under the new proposals, they will quickly get used to the idea that a ‘massive’ game is the biggest one can get. And the time saved will result in huge increases in productivity elsewhere.
My proposals are intended for the Irish economy, but we are dependent on our European partners, so perhaps our new frugal ways will be adopted by some of them. Take Silvio Berlusconi. Please.
His ‘Bunga Bunga’ parties would be no less enjoyable by being described as simply ‘Bunga’ parties. Again, a 50% cut with no real pain having to be endured.
Oh, I know there will be some who find my proposal unrealistic, my figures disputable and will foresee difficulties with aligning all government department computers in time to have the capacity to enforce these cuts. To the knockers, I say this.
Was there any need for two knocks in the standard Irish ‘Knock, Knock’ jokes? The answer is a resounding ‘No’. It is this type of excess that has gotten us into trouble with our European partners. We can’t go on double-knocking and expecting others in the EU to get by with one. This government should stand up to the knockers and ban the extra ‘Knock’. We already have enough struggling airports.
You might think I am myopic in looking merely at Ireland, but I have not forgotten our international obligations. In terms of overseas development, think what a 50% cut in beri-beri disease would mean? And this could be achieved by the simple stroke of a pen!
You might say that I am taking many of the easy options. Tackling what’s called the ‘low-hanging fruit’. But I am prepared to take courageous decisions – even those that affect children – they are our future after all, and we’re doing this for them.
It has come to my attention that many mothers refer to their young children with short names by doubling up. Hence, the perfectly functional ‘John’ often becomes ‘John-John’ and there are many more examples of waste in this area which I won’t describe here for fear that the abject excess will put you off your breakfast. “Jim-Jims’ abound as do ‘Joe-Joes’ and others. And these names are repeated again and again and again.
And, of course this crime continues into adult life where gallons of ink are wasted on ‘JJ’s’. These will be shortened to a simple ‘J’ in the new dispensation. Unfortunately, it will not be possible achieve the reduction for ‘PJ’s’, ‘JP’s’ ‘DJ’s’ and others, but they will hopefully be tackled at a later date during the lifetime of this government.
I know many of you out there are tut-tuting my approach. To you I say, you have one ‘tut’ too many. Think of all the extra time you will save by cutting out the extra word.
Yes, it is time for us Irish to introduce these deep, deep cuts to show that we are turning the economy around. It’s just the right thing to do. We have to show that we are capable of kicking the can down the road. Doing the can-can at this stage would just send a very bad message to our European partners.